Burya polov

Буря полов! Or, an effeminate Russian boy's story

Copyleft 🄯 2025 David Klopić

The author of this work voluntarily waives his right to copy, and allows anyone to copy, redistribute, and even resell this excerpt, with the only prerequisites being that the name of the author must be present, and the work, including derivatives, must be shared under the same terms as the original, per the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 International license. Some rights reserved.

Warning

This is a work in progress (W.I.P.), and is thus susceptible to change.

Chapter Four: In the way of their moment

The next time Zhenya walked into Pyaterochka to try out a vegan snack, which was before school the following day, he observed that the oil aisle no longer had an overwhelming amount of oil containers. He did notice one such container, albeit now filled with water. No doubt about it—that pesky tuna can had been responsible for the oil-mageddon all along. On his way to the station, he peeked at the kiosk, the newspaper stand brimming with images of the tuna can monster, most if not all of them boiling down to “Two Brave Girls Brought Down Giant Tuna Can Monster” as if it were an everyday occurrence (even the most pro-government publications used a similar language), although one of them might have questioned whether the second hero had been a girl. Before making it to his train, he decided to purchase it. His excuse—nobody else would.

Having sat down in the classroom, and while crossing his legs, he spread the newspaper across his half of the table, but barely began reading when Filat got behind him and poked his back strongly.

“How do you do, fellow pensioner?” Filat greeted.

“You’re hard to please, you know that?” Zhenya greeted back.

“Not at all, but hey, at least you’re not bringing beauty magazines… Hey, isn’t that the event from yesterday?”

Filat scrolled further through the newspaper. Politics. “Kremlin to Host High-Profile Conference.” Moscow News. “Polyanka Stop Pops into Presence after Petrol[1] Problems.” Column. “Lack of Liberalism Makes Me Livid.”

“Ew, liberals,” Filat uttered, “and why are they forcing alliteration in all their headlines?”

He stared at Zhenya as if looking for the answer.

“Don’t ask me,” he replied, “I’m just an esteemed reader.”

In between classes, Zhenya continued to read the newspaper, one article at a time. To his dismay, the article about the battle from the previous day was just another word salad. He was also sitting on a bench close to the canteen during lunch time to read, but while doing so, he heard a sound of a page being turned over. But it was not him. He looked to his right and saw Dina, also holding a newspaper.

“Ah, krasivy malchik!” she greeted cheerfully. “I’m guessing you were also intrigued by what the media had to say regarding yesterday.”

“Yes,” he replied, “but here I am thinking if I should be flattered or worried about publications calling me a girl…”

“Well, look on the bright side: they’re somewhat acknowledging the appeal of feminine boys!”

“You think so? But I think they’re afraid of actually writing about them in fear of Roskomnadzor[2].”

“Roskomnadzor! Now that’s a word I didn’t expect from you! Did someone hurt you?”

“Wha—what do you mean?”

“Relax, I’m just teasing you. Besides, who hasn’t heard of Roskomnadzor?”

Zhenya looked at Dina’s newspaper again. It was titled Osvobozhdenie[3].

“Where did you get your paper?” he asked. “It’s got some dark spots on it. Is it from food?”

“Oh, I have no idea!” Dina replied, closing the newspaper impulsively. “But I didn’t buy it from the black market, promise.”

Newspapers? On the black market? That was a novelty to him. What kind of sick stories did they publish that the general public was unable to read? And were they even sick, or just to those in power? He wanted to have a further look at her paper, but decided not to say anything. He also needed to visit the toilet.

On his way, while still reading, he barely managed not to trip on whatever it was that was in his way. After lowering the newspaper, he saw a few familiar faces.

“Ah, Zhena!” Valeriya said, slightly smirking. “I didn’t expect you to dodge Ivan’s mighty foot like it’s nothing—”

“Hey, I really, really need to go to the toilet,” Zhenya said to her, “so if you’d be kind”—he shoved his newspaper into her hands—“hold onto these while I take a tinkle. It won’t take long!”

Without struggle, Zhenya proceeded onward. Valeriya humphed, and decided to peek inside.

“Do people still read newspaper?”

“My great grandpa does,” one goon said.

“Well, obviously! I was asking if anyone below the age of 20 does the same… But, what do effeminate men such as Zhena like to read, I wonder?”

“I’d guess liberal media,” another goon suggested.

“Liberal, you say? Aren’t those super rare? Which one is this…”

While she was gazing into his newspaper, Zhenya promptly returned from his destination.

“Sorry for the wait,” he said, “can I have my newspaper back now?”

“Say, BOY,” Valeriya said, uncovering her face with it, “I find it amusing that you left me your newspaper so nonchalantly…”

This was followed by the goons pushing him towards her, and her pinning him to a nearby wall.

“…AND expect to get them back just as easily. Tell me, did you pick these based on the front page, or did you make an educated guess?”

“F-frankly,” Zhenya stuttered, “it’s a little bit of… both.”

“So you’re a liberal, eh?”

“I don’t know what that mea—”

“Oh, don’t play games with me! Vestnik[4] is as liberal as newspapers can get! I’m surprised you managed to find it in the midst of… saner publications,” she said.

“W-well, what’s it to you? The Constitution guarantees freedom of the press,” Zhenya replied, technically being correct, “and nothing is stopping me from choosing the lesser known publications.”

“Is that so? Well, nothing’s stopping me from intimidating anyone engaging, or about to engage, in criminal activities…”

“Like consuming ‘foreign agent’ media?” a goon said.

“Yeah, like cons—wait, don’t just give dangerous examples like that! He’s still a minor, goddammit!”

Valeriya said this with a bit more vigour than usual.

“Well, assuming this BOY isn’t doing that already. Isn’t that right!?”

Suddenly, Valeriya pushed Zhenya to the ground, while she stood over him.

“Speaking of consumption, I’ve always wondered how these taste,” she said, taking a page from the newspaper and sniffing it.

“You aren’t going to…”

“What?” she replied to the goon who asked. “I’m not eating these. It’s unhygienic! But I do know someone who might like the taste of something that isn’t an antidepressant pill…”

Obviously, Zhenya objected to such humiliation, but the corridor was so narrow that the goons and Valeriya easily surrounded him. But wait a moment, he thought. Was he not a magical boy? With unrivalled athletics? He could easily skip over them like a deer graciously running away from the hunter. He moved away from Valeriya, stood up, bent his knees slightly, and pushed himself against the floor in an attempt to take to the skies—or at least the school’s ceiling. But his grace was incredibly short-lived, having fallen flat on his stomach. The goons picked him up hastily and apprehended him, while Valeriya approached him with a crumpled page of the newspaper, ready to treat him like a political prisoner on a hunger strike.

“Say ‘ahh’!”

He did not, however, so she had to intervene by stepping on his left foot, which forced him to do so. Then, she shoved a page into his mouth, which he began to chew on. But she did not stop with just one, she immediately fed him another. And another one. By the seventh page, Zhenya looked like a chubby bunny, and it was no longer entertaining. Why had he given Valeriya the benefit of the doubt? The presumption of innocence, even? No matter how much saliva he excreted, the paper inside his mouth sucked it up like a sponge. But Valeriya was still not satisfied.

To his relief, what interrupted Valeriya’s escapades was an explosion, although not as ear-piercing as the one Dina induced the previous day. It was the goons that answered first. They let him go and escaped to the upper floor, Valeriya following along, and then Zhenya as he began to eject the disgusting debris from his mouth. He had not even got a chance to read those pages! He encountered Dina on the stairway, who let out a loud gasp.

“What the hell happened to you!?” she panicked, looking at his hands grasping the wet pages of newspaper.

“Nothing,” Zhenya replied, smiling.

“Nothing, my ass! It’s Valeriya, isn’t it… What an annoying bitch!”

Zhenya shrugged and went toward the rubbish bin to free his hands.

“I’m coming with you next time,” Dina said, clenching her fist, “so that she doesn’t lay a finger on you again! But YOU gotta start avoiding her too, because she—”

“—did it! The dynamite girl set up the explosives!”

Valeriya, standing with a group of students gathered around a busted door, with something odd having come out, was already pointing a finger at Dina.

“You pulled that one straight outta your ass!” she shouted, not having it. “I use explosives exclusively in the open!”

“Oh yeah? Didn’t you use one last week right in front of me?”

“Fake. That didn’t count.”

“You set it on fire!”

“Now, now, ladies,” an adult spoke, “let’s simmer down a bit. A staff member told me the security camera did not catch anyone suspicious hanging around this door…”

Valeriya smirked, saying, “Probably because there is no camera to begin with.”

“What do you mea—”

He looked upward, and saw that Valeriya was right. There was nothing that would have recorded the culprit.

“But I’m sure she did it! You HAVE seen her behaviour before, haven’t you?” Valeriya said to pretty much everyone present. “She had to answer to the principal because of it!”

Zhenya let out a determined sound before standing in front of Dina and looked the other girl straight in the eyes.

“You’re welcome to blame me for… anything… uh, I ever do… or don’t do, but… you will not drag mom—er, I mean, Di—”

“Mum!?” Valeriya shouted, followed by laughter. “Did you just call your classmate ‘mum’!? Truly, your effeminacy knows no—”

Bounds, she did say, but the school bell spoke even louder. Lunch time was over. Most students dispersed, and left the matter as-is. But as soon as the few staff members also went away, Zhenya ran up the stairs to the scene of the explosion. What he found shocked him greatly—the room was jam-packed with soft sour candy shaped like dinosaurs, with the colours alternating between pink and blue, in each and every crevice of it. And the fact of the matter was that it tasted just like store-bought sour candy. Don’t tell me a monster is behind this, Zhenya thought.

Once school time was up, Zhenya briefly met up with Dina as she was leaving the premises. He mustered up some courage beforehand.

“I came to apologise to you.”

“Really?” she said, turning around. “What for?”

“Earlier today, I uh… may have called you an inappropriate name.”

“Which was?”

Silence. That is, besides a gentle “hm” coming from Dina.

“What is it, krasivy malchik? Cat got your tongue?”

“Do I really have to say it again?”

“Yes, you do.”

“Will you… pay me to say it?” he asked as a joke.

“Sure”—she did not—“but don’t expect a lot.”

“Oh, of course not… how much?”

“I’ll give you 500 roubles[5].”

Zhenya hesitated a little before replying:

“Well, alright… I may… or may not… have called you… m-m… mommy.”

Dina’s smile was as wide as the Red Square.

“You’re too pure for this harsh world,” Dina said, still simpering, before handing him the banknote.

“And there’s nothing to forgive,” she added, “because you’d done nothing that requires an apology.”

Then, she disappeared.

He swore not to use the banknote immediately—or even at all. Should he frame it?


Two weeks passed, and September was drawing to a close. In the meantime, random enclosed spaces becoming filled to the brim with sour candy became a common occurrence. All over Moscow and the oblast of the same name, a random room that was devoid of any people would suddenly fill up, and when the door opened, even with just a tap on the door knob, it caused a non-destructive explosion that made a mess outside the room with said candy. That was how the news went. Now, cleaning the outside was simple enough. On the not-so-bright side, however, this did not make the candy that was inside the room go away. But then, the ethics. What to do with all that candy? It would stuff every rubbish bin on the premises, it would semi-encumber a municipal truck, to set fire to it on a landfill would be immoral (starving children and all), and eating so much of it was detrimental to one’s health. And yet, something had to be done as to free up the space. Not that it took ages to clean up the mess in the Moscow Gymnasium, but the secretary’s workbench, inside the office which had been the target, was inaccessible until the housekeeping was finished.

On Friday, Zhenya could get away with sleeping one hour longer than usual, as his classes on that day, as well as Tuesday, began at ten minutes to nine instead of eight o’clock sharp. He did not mind waking up at earlier intervals, either, believing he had been quite lucky with the schedule. That is to say, some schools had its students wake up as early as six o’clock. Plus, Friday was made extra special because the first class he had was English.

As the first day of October neared, so did tests and in some cases oral exams. Subjects like English, History, ICT, and Russian language (but not literature, yet) were a cakewalk to Zhenya. Strangely to him, Chemistry, despite being heavily focused on theory rather than practice, was also enjoyable enough for him not to have too many problems with it. But Physics? Geometry? Algebra? Sure, Chemistry did dabble a little bit with numbers, but since he was in grade nine, the number game was getting a bit out of hand when the other two subjects were concerned.

During lunch, while he was doing nothing noteworthy, Dina sat next to him, holding a six-foot sandwich. As in, a sandwich that was indeed six feet[6] long.

“You look like you could use some help,” Zhenya said, gazing at the sandwich.

“I’ll be fine,” Dina said, “perhaps you’re worried”—munch—“I’ll get fat or somethin’? Well, I can assure you”—smutch—“that all calories that go into this body get incinerated after a good workout in nature! After all”—chump—“gyms are expensive, and food isn’t!”

She stopped talking after she noticed her mouth got quite full, so she chewed thoroughly for a good minute or two before swallowing.

“Anyway, you asked if I needed help?”

“I was referring to the sandwich—”

“Don’t worry about that! But… I do need your help on something else.”

Dina passed a notebook of hers to him. A Chemistry one.

“Excuse me for a moment,” she began, “but this guy’s classes are fucking torture! And hardly anybody in my class gets his blibber-blabber! Well, there’s always that one student… I already resolved to cram for the exam I have next week, just like the president crams for his televised speeches, but…”

“Hm?” uttered Zhenya, actively listening.

“I thought… maybe you’d be interested in cramm—I mean, studying, together…”

Zhenya was caught off-guard. Studying with Dina sounded like a dream, no doubt. But where was Natalya in that picture? Were she and Dina not best friends? A friend in need was a friend indeed, right?

“Nat’ said she’s going out,” she replied, “said it’s some boy from another class, and is so tall that he could be mistaken for an adult, or something.”

Zhenya immediately imagined Natalya holding hands with Filat. No, not that kind of “going out”! Surely?

“Besides,” she continued, “I’m sure krasivy malchik”—she poked him with her elbow—“ain’t a straight-A student who knows everything, right? Be honest!”

“W-well, of course not! You’re struggling with Chemistry the way you do, but… but I’m… bewilderingly awful with numbers. No, wait, I don’t mean—”

“Like Algebra?” Dina grabbed his hands and startled him, but he managed to nod. “Why,” she said, letting go, “you have the perfect gal for the job! I may not look like it, but I’ve shocked my Algebra teacher with how I solve the more difficult tasks she writes on the blackboard. I already got a five[7] in the markbook for gathering five pluses in her notes!”

“Woah… amazing!”

“Oh, it’s nothing, seriously! I just happen to enjoy playing with numbers, and it translates well onto the blackboard. And hopefully the test next week… Anyway…”

She stared into his eyes. Or rather, his luscious eyelashes.

“You wanna study together, or are you a busy bee, too?”

Zhenya was looking right back at Dina.

“Sure!” he replied on impulse. “I would love to!”

“Great!” Dina smiled. “Come to my place, then. It’s pretty damn spacious in there.”

“Sure. Do you live nearby?”

“Depends on what’s nearby to you.”

“Can we get there via metro?”

“…Yes and no,” she replied after a pause. “Well, if it’s too far away, the—”

“No, no, you offered to study together after all, so…”

“Are you sure you can make it?”

“Of course, it’s just…”

“Oh, you don’t know where I live? Why, let me show you!”

She pulled up her phone and showed him the place. Zhenya was able to deduce that it was east of Moscow, in what appeared to be greenery all around it. Perhaps his calculation was correct, and she did in fact live surrounded by trees and the occasional wild animal?

“So what you gotta do is, take which ever train gets you to this stop here, exit the underground, find this bus station there and take bus 362, get to… wait… here, then get off and ring me, and my dad will pick you up shortly. But lemme give you my number first…”

Dina and Zhenya exchanged phones first and foremost, then phone numbers. Although Dina’s contact entry obviously appeared above Papa and Mama (with the latter serving only as a memento), her name there was made flashier with two emotes, both depicting an explosion, surrounding it. That was the wonder of modern technology.

“Oh,” Zhenya said, “my contact entry looks a bit plain…”

“Not anymore!”

Dina grinned as she showed her phone again with his name—she appended a flower to the start of it. Zhenya blushed.

“Not to offend or anything,” she then said, “but you strike me as a boy who loves flowers.”

“You say so? Well, you may be right! I actually have a—”

Wait a second! Had Faina not said that growing flowers was a girl’s hobby? What would this girl think of him if she heard him say that?

“A flower garden? No way!”

“No, no! Of course I don’t! I’m a boy, right!?’

“Huh?” Dina raised her eyebrow. “What the hell do you mean?”

“Like… wouldn’t it be weird for a guy to be… watering flowers? Shouldn’t I be playing foot—”

“Like hell it would!” she replied almost immediately, appearing utterly offended. “That’s a super cute hobby! For a guy or girl, no matter! Who even thought of such a stupid fucking stereotype!?”

Fruit for thought.

“Anyway, you gotta show it to me in person! Remind me to swing by your place next time.”

“S-sure,” replied Zhenya.

In any case, their fate was sealed. Now Zhenya only had to hope his father would not question him too much. As the bell rang, everything seemed ordinary at first, until students started massively heading toward the gym. Apparently, the menace struck again, at a much, much larger scale this time: same old dinosaur-shaped sour candy overflowing from the doorway leading inside. It looked like it was finally time for the principal to call the big boys… In no way would the school’s janitors undertake this cleaning operation, especially with their current salary.


It was a sunny Saturday. Zhenya got up at nine o’clock, had a quick breakfast, packed up some items for the study session, and headed outside. His father seemed welcoming to the idea of finally having made a friend, although Zhenya felt he needed to refer to her as a boy, for the time being anyway.

His itinerary was unambiguous. Buninskaya Alleya to Ulitsa Starokachalovskaya on line 12, ten minutes. Bulvar Dmitriya Donskogo to Borovitskaya on line 9, thirty minutes. Arbatskaya to Schyolkovskaya on line 3, twenty-five minutes. Finally, he entered the bus Dina prescribed to him, and it did take some time due to a congestion, but soon he drove past the two city limit signs, leaving Moscow and entering Balashikha. It was there that his eyes caught a billboard displaying an advertisement of a dubiously-titled Russian political party. Interestingly, the first of the words was “liberal”. But he did not care what else it said. He continued to gaze outside his window. Trees had already begun to shed their leaves and prepare for the colder days ahead. There were few clouds in the sky, and the sun was shining as if it were summer. The bus fare took almost thirty-five minutes as he was caught in more traffic jams, but at last, he disembarked at the designated bus stop, Dachi Almaz, and called Dina on his phone. She picked it up, said only, “coming soon!” and hung up. The waiting game went on for fifteen minutes before an unsuspecting car made a U-turn and parked beside the bus stop on a road expansion, but not before an old-fashioned honking sound emitted from it. The car horn, however, was not the only thing that was out of style…

“Come on in, boy-o!” the driver said, swinging the door open. He was smiling, and his radio was up to eleven just seconds ago, although he had been wearing noise-cancelling earphones before meeting Zhenya. “You don’t wanna be dirty in front of me daughter, do ya?”

He shook his head, took the front seat, closed the door, and was just about to fasten his seatbelt.

“Oh, you don’t have to! The road’s bumpy, but not that bumpy.”

Meanwhile, the car had shut down, so the driver re-ignited the engine and returned to the road ahead. Shortly after, he continued straight even though the main road curved to the left. The street, named after the current weather, was narrow, but still paved and, frankly, not Russia’s worst road. But then the street ended and he drove right, when the asphalt also ceased. For a few metres, the road was made out of gravel, and at a later point the two entered a dirt road. No wonder the car was dusty.

“My daughter told me a great deal about you,” the driver said, “including that you own an arboretum. Is she correct?”

“Well, it’s actually a… very tiny flower garden,” he replied with reluctance.

“She also said your handwriting is some of the finest in the country.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Zhenya replied, “but I practise it any day I can.”

“Ah, and she also mentioned that you’ve once proudly worn a skirt in public.”

Zhenya flinched.

“Okay, she’s lying about that!”

“Heh, me too. But, even if you had, I wouldn’t judge. You could say I’m fond of men who dare wear a… Maaan, maaan in a dress, who runs fast he is best!”

He did not accidentally sing the song out loud—it was on the radio.

“Oh, is that RTM?”

“Right on! You know them?”

“They’re cool.”

“You got taste, little guy.”

While they were conversing, the car had driven deeper into the woods. After a sharper turn to the left, a quaint two-floor house popped up. This was where the driver parked, inside of a garage without walls that was beside it. Zhenya came out of the vehicle while the man had to check its hood. He knocked on the entrance door, and Dina appeared behind it and welcomed him with an embrace, which did startle him slightly, but it made him loosen up. The two entered the home. Its exterior was quaint, but the inside was a bit less so. They had a television, but…

“We don’t watch the ‘mainstream’ channels. Only Pyatnica and Yu. We still have to pay the TV tax, though,” Dina added begrudgingly, “even though we do not own an antenna…”

Her father made an entrance as well, and took out a blank plastic card while standing in front of an ironclad door.

“Ah, you’re going to your lab already?” Dina asked.

“Yup. You two can have the whole house to yourselves. Remember not to make too much noise, alright?”

“Yes, dad.”

Smiling, he punched the code in with the card in place and went through the door after a buzzing sound letting him know that it had been unlocked.

“Alright,” Dina said, looking at Zhenya, “come with me!”

Dina climbed some stairs to a ceiling door, which were opened by pulling on a small hook on the right. But, just as she yanked it ever so slightly, the door came down in a flash, with Dina barely dodging it. Zhenya was just standing below, and the door was headed his way.

“Look out!” Dina shouted, flew down the stairs, and knocked Zhenya out of the way before the door hit him. After another look at the passageway, the two realised—the sour candy had filled the entire first floor of the house.

“Dammit! I just tidied my room!” Dina cried, with her arms in the air. “And I just came out of the room to make tea! And all my school things are in there! You did at least bring yours, right?”

Zhenya nodded. He stood up, walked up the stairs, and touched the impenetrable wall of candy, and heard some plastic as he did so. There was a bit sticking out, so he tried to pull it out, but without luck. Dina offered to help, and she pulled it out in one tug, causing more candy to fall upon them. It was a plastic bag, and on it was the image of two cartoon dinosaurs, one pink and the other blue.

“No way all this candy came from this puny bag!” Dina said, shaking it. “Thirty of these can fit inside it, no more! And how many of them are in here? Probably thirty thousand… um, tonnes! Yeah, that sounds more reasonable…”

“What if… we made the bag bigger?” Zhenya suggested.

“But how are we… ohh, you’re onto something, krasivy malchik… Lemme get us a shovel from the garage.”

So, Dina ran off while Zhenya undertook his transformation sequence for the second time. By the time he turned into Pretty Pink, Dina had come back, carrying two shovels.

“I hope you don’t mind helping as well. Rest assured, if we ever tie the knot, you won’t have to do this.”

“Oh, you,” Zhenya spoke quietly, blushing like a beetroot.

“Oh, wait, first go outside and enlarge the bag. Put it somewhere close to the roof window, in the direction of the stairs.”

Zhenya nodded and walked out of the house after leaving the shovel by the door. Once he was facing said window, he placed the bag on the ground and, with the swing of the wand, exclaimed:

“Burya polov!”

He pointed at the bag and let the beam shine upon it. But he noticed something peculiar: the beam did not envelop the plastic bag itself, but the illustration of the two dinosaurs. Oh, dear. This was bad. While the bag remained untouched, the two dinosaurs grew bigger and bigger, until they were practically like the real thing, several million years ago. Once they reached apex size, they roared. Zhenya swallowed his spit and tried to get back into the house, but the dinosaurs were much, much quicker than the poor boy. But just as he loudly lamented that he had only one more spell to cast, Dina shouted, “Save it for later, boy!” and threw a pair of knock-back explosives, which for some reason did not affect Zhenya, but it did cause the two dinosaurs to be sent flying some distance away. Shortly after, Dina was in the air.

“This might sound oddly specific, but do you have a kind of vacuum spell?”

A vacuum spell! How would it even function? Was it like a computer program? With variables and things of that sort? Zhenya had good grades in ICT, but he was not going for a degree in it. He picked up his fat yet small book of spells, and conveniently opened the page where, while moving his finger across it, he found the spell Dina was asking for.

“I guess so! But… wait… Before casting this spell, it is important to note that you… uh-huh… set up the area… yep… one corner… opposite corner… Swing your wand from side to side… see the symbol… press the button that will… Dina, there’s an entire screenplay written about this spell! You sure it’ll work out?”

“Don’t worry about me! I’ve dealt with stronger people before!”

Stronger? Like bodybuilders? Did that mean Dina was a bodybuilder herself? No, no, she did not look like one at all! Or maybe she did? It was hard to tell when she was covering basically every inch of her body…

Snapping out of these thoughts, Zhenya ran back inside, put his wand around his neck which turned it back into a necklace, grabbed a shovel leaning against a wall and began to make his way into Dina’s room. Usually, digging around one’s room was considered rude, but this time was an exception. By the third swing of the shovel, Zhenya had already begun to pant. He was not used to such physical labour. But he had to continue, since Dina could only endure for so long… He eventually poked the first corner of her room with the tip of his wand and began setting the buffer area of the spell. Then, it was off to the other end of the room, digging just a little more. One slightly smaller struggle later, he marked the second corner of the room. To get out, Zhenya opened the roof window and tried to jump through it, but he was too short and the window too far away. In fact, he had barely opened it by pulling on a hanging thread. He got crafty, made a pile using some of the candy, and attempted an escape, this time successfully, albeit with some struggle (toothpick arms, remember?). In the distance, Dina was on the floor, playing dead while the dinosaurs sniffed her. Those savages! Seeing a rather large stone casually sitting on the rooftop, Zhenya picked it up and hurled it with all his might. It did not fly far. The dinosaurs still heard the rustling noise, as the stone fell into some fallen leaves, so they they left Dina be and waddled towards the boy.

“That’s ri… com… What the?”

His body came to a complete halt. Was he trying to shout past his capabilities? Maybe he was getting too emotional? He tried again.

“You…”

Nothing. There was little noise, and it fizzled out. How was he going to shout for help if he were utterly helpless, and not a magical boy that was perfectly capable of defending himself? Or was asking for help considered a weakness? Especially in a man’s case?

“Ah, screw it, they’re here. No time to waste… Suverennoe gosudarstvo[8]!”

Holding the wand in his right hand, he touched it with his left, before making several waves in one direction, raising both hands, then making a few more while closing the circle he had created. Once he poked the middle, his wand turned into a hollow cylinder. The pink dinosaur tried to take a bite out of Zhenya, but he dodged upward and pointed the cylinder to its mouth.

“Eat up!”

Pressing the button that appeared on the wand, Zhenya began ejecting tonnes of candy in a perfectly straight line, feeding the dinosaur that attacked him. Ultimately, his goal was to eliminate the threat via force-feeding. But the pink dinosaur did not make an attempt to close its mouth, until the blue dinosaur pushed it aside and had its share from the candy fountain. Then the other dinosaur shoved it to the side to eat more. They bickered and bickered, until the stream of candy stopped. Dina’s room was now completely empty, at least of the candy. But the dinosaurs then resorted to sniffing poor Zhenya.

“Haha, sorry, you two, but I taste like a… a dingleberry…”

Suddenly, Dina appeared behind them and landed on the rooftop next to Zhenya.

“Would ya look at that, you tidied my room from all that diabetes! Good boy—er, I mean, good job, good job!”

The moment he heard the two words, he became red in his face and turned his back on her.

“R-right! But…”

Zhenya, having turned back to her, pointed to the dinosaurs which were now squealing.

“I think they’re still hungry.”

Dina scratched her chin and gazed into the sky.

“Oh! I have just the thing! I’m guessing you’re all outta spells, huh?”

Zhenya nodded sadly.

“It’s fine, come with me anyway.”

“But what about the dino—”

“They’ll be fine, we won’t take long. Now, come along!”

They jumped through the roof window, back into Dina’s room, then into the living room downstairs and ran toward the kitchen. Dina opened the refrigerator and pulled out two eggs, while Zhenya was instructed to fill a smaller pot with some water and add salt to it.

“We’re going to boil some eggs?” Zhenya asked, a bit dumbfounded.

“Yup,” she replied, “but hear me out. You said you can use any of the two spells you’d used already twice more, right? By that logic, we could make these two eggs much more satiating, don’t you think?”

“I suppose it’s worth a try.”

While the eggs were being boiled, Dina and Zhenya looked out the window and saw the two dinosaurs engaging in an act of deforestation. No tree was safe unless it was far away, and even evergreen trees were a target.

“Man, those sons of bitches are desperate for food,” said Dina, “can’t be me.”

Once eight minutes elapsed since the water began to boil, Dina switched off the stove and washed the eggs with cold water to cool them down a notch. With a plan in mind, Dina and Zhenya returned to the rooftop where Dina whistled to the dinosaurs which were busy consuming cones and berries from a juniper tree. Zhenya had to cover his ears a little.

“Open wide!” Dina shouted, and flung the two eggs in separate directions.

Similarly to the fight with the tuna can, Zhenya delayed before he drew his magic wand and shouted the magic spell which he had used to enlarge the plastic bag (rather, to spawn in the dinosaurs from said bag). He shouted it twice in a row so that the spell could target both eggs. Thankfully for him, most spells were homing spells. As the dinosaurs dropped their jaws to bizarre levels, the magic beams enveloped the eggs before they made it into the dinosaurs’ mouths, when they began to grow in size. While getting larger, however, they got stuck in their throats. This was followed by a uniform sound of two balloons popping. Both Zhenya and Dina blinked, and the dinosaurs were no more—just two large boiled eggs sitting in some leaves. They looked at one another, shrugged, and jumped from the rooftop to the soil. Zhenya conveniently fell onto a water puddle and returned to his previous form.

“So, any ideas as to what we’re gonna do with these, krasivy malchik?” Dina said, leaned against one of the eggs.

Zhenya looked below him and thought for a minute.

“Let’s eat them.”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”

“What do you mean by ‘what do you mean by that’? You like food, right?”

“I do.”

“And you like to eat a lot of it, yes?”

“I… do.”

Her face, which she felt needed hiding, had become redder.

“Then, you should take on one egg, and your father and I can split the other… If he’d be okay with that.”

“Well… okay!”

Zhenya’s suggestion worked wonderfully in the end, as Dina had been incredibly hungry after all, and her father, who introduced himself as Anatoly, was glad to share the egg with Zhenya, who might have had to explain how these eggs had been made. He tried to tell the honest truth, but Dina kept interrupting him on purpose. Anatoly just shrugged his shoulders, swept the topic under the rug, and picked up a glass of sparkling water.

“Anyway, let us toast! Today’s a big day for the Ipatyev household!”

“Could it be!?” Dina shouted after dropping her fork to the table. “Did you finally figure it out?”

“I have! And I’m happy to present to you…”

“What is it, what is it!?”

Anatoly, as he reached for his pocket and revealed to them a blue cyllinder with a fish symbol on it, announced:

“The Fish Stick[9]!”

“Oh.”

Her excitement quickly dissipated as she returned to munching on the egg without a care, while Zhenya tried to lighten up the mood by asking:

“Well, what does it do?”

“I’m glad you asked, boy-o! This here is the first in the series of explosives that come with a toggle on the bottom. With this, you can make it explode like most explosives, and leave behind the classic fish stench we’re all too familiar with, or you can”—he flipped the switch—“stick it anywhere, preferably food, set it ablaze and, upon detonation, for lack of a better word, enjoy your product with a fishy flavour! Here’s a demonstration…”

After he lit on fire the dynamite that he stuck into his egg, instead of the casual explosion, of which even his own daughter seemed scared, the cyllinder fell apart and imbued the egg with fishy properties. Whether that was a bad thing or not is up to debate, but Anatoly seemed content after taking a bite out of the egg after the makeshift explosion.

“Pretty cool, huh?” he said, looking at the two who simply stared right back at him, one in awe and the other in vicarious embarrassment.

He lifted the glass one more time, as did the other two.

“Cheers!”

“Uz veselību![10]” said the father. “ I learned that phrase just now.”

Dina finished dining first, followed by Anatoly who immediately disembarked the dining room. Once Zhenya completed his meal as well, Dina reintroduced him to her humble abode—the furnished garret.

At last, it was high time that they began studying…

END OF CHAPTER

Footnotes:

[1] Not entirely accurate.
[2] Context: Roskomnadzor is a government agency responsible for regulation and censorship of mass media within Russia.
[3] Освобождение, meaning “liberation”.
[4] Вестник, meaning “messenger”.
[5] €5. You should be getting it by now.
[6] Which is around 1.82 metres, for the metric crowd.
[7] The grade five (5) (known in Russian as отлично, meaning “excellent”) is the highest grade a student can receive in the four-point system.
[8] Суверенное государство, meaning “Sovereign State”.
[9] The British variant of the word, which is “fish finger”, is not a very punny one, in my opinion.
[10] “To (your) health!” in a certain Baltic language that will soon be known.

Edit

Pub: 05 Jan 2025 18:58 UTC

Edit: 07 May 2025 13:47 UTC

Views: 217